LIves in Cricket No 31 - Walter Robins

51 was later said to have given life to that term for a left-armer’s googly. However, Robbie always denied being the originator and said he had only repeated a similar cry of frustration made by his friend ‘Patsy’ Hendren two years earlier in Trinidad: ‘Fancy being bowled by a bloody chinaman!’ after Achong, making his Test debut, had bowled him when Hendren was well on his way to another century. There were still four more Middlesex matches before the ship sailed for Canada but Robbie featured in none of them. Instead, he was kept busy back in Nottingham seeing that the team was fully prepared for the tour ahead of them. But he would have particularly enjoyed the last of the matches for Sir Julien. It was at Wolstanton against Staffordshire, the county of his birth, and he took the opportunity to confirm that the quality of Staffordshire cricket had been passed on to him by his father and cracked a brilliant 148. Three days later, all the players selected for the tour were gathered together at Claridge’s Hotel in London for a farewell lunch. The squad was another collection of varied talents, experience and inexperience, similar to that taken to Argentina. In addition to Robbie, four members had toured two years before: George Heane, Harold Munt, ‘Lofty’ Newman and Stuart Rhodes. This time there were three other players younger than Robbie as well as Stuart Rhodes: these were Cecil Maxwell, 20, who had joined the Cahn empire straight from Brighton College the year before; Paul Gibb, 20, who had started playing for Cahn earlier that year; and Tommy Reddick, 21, who had moved to Nottingham in 1932 to study the methods of furniture manufacture at one of Cahn’s upholstery factories before taking up a position at a large Jay’s store in Manchester. There were three other Test cricketers in the party, in addition to Robbie. From the Dominions there was Roger Blunt, the New Zealander who also worked in the advertising department, and Denys Morkel from South Africa who Sir Julien was helping to establish a motor business in Nottingham. From England, via Scotland, there was Robbie’s old and trusted friend Ian Peebles, although for this trip it was Kathleen who was trusting him to bring her husband back safe and sound. Making up the final number of fourteen players were Edward Solbé, 30, a county player for Kent back in 1924, and Gerald Summers who had moved up to Nottingham a year earlier after several seasons as a regular with Surrey seconds. Last, but by no means least, was a journalist from the London Evening Standard who was also a talented amateur cricketer, the 26-year-old Jim Swanton, who explained his presence on the tour: ‘Through a chance remark when playing cricket at Sir Julien Cahn’s house, I found myself invited by that gregarious sporting millionaire.’ During the farewell lunch at Claridge’s on 11 August, J.H.Thomas, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, proposed the toast to ‘Cricket, Canada and the Team’ and the Lord Mayor of Nottingham spoke of Sir Julien’s service to the game of cricket, so the tour was no lightweight matter. After a night at the hotel, the team, together with Lady Cahn, her father and mother and her aunt, sailed from Southampton. They landed at Quebec on 18 August Part-Time Cricket